November 16th, 2009
Now this pisses me off….
Nearly every morning when I leave my Park Slope brownstone, I am greeted with a puddle of dog urine right outside my front door. And almost always, that dog urine is on a small wall of my brownstone as in this lovely photo.
Now I like dogs and, until my little dog Midnight died last year, I was a dog owner. I realize you cannot always control where they pee. In fact, walking down the street sometimes seemed like a mine field of places your dog could just NOT relieve itself. No to the trees, no to the flowers, no to the garbage cans, no to cars, no to the bikes (even if they’ve been chained there since our last snow storm), no to small children. It can get a little crazy here in brownstone Brooklyn.
But I knew there was one thing I could control. I could and did CURB my dog so he would never pee on someone’s brownstone or house or apartment building. So why are so many people unable to grasp this simple solution — CURB your dog. In truth, two of these people are my neighbors. One is a woman with a Portuguese water dog. I’ve asked her point blank not to allow her dog to pee on my stoop each day and she just stared at me saying nothing. Can you say psycho??!!! I began taking photos and video of her with my cell phone and she stopped.
Another offender is a male neighbor with an older sweet Lab. I like the guy and his dog but he too seems incapable of doing the right thing. I have not asked him to stop because, well, because he’s a little too close to the edge. No use pushing someone over it.
And then there was the day my wife and I exited to find a dog in flagrante – doing his thing on our front stoop. Both of us confronted the owner in a fairly polite way (no cursing) and his response was “this is public property.”
“Uh, no, it’s not,” my wife said. “This is our home.”
“Oh come on,” he said incredulously.
We asked him if he was going to chip in to repoint our brownstone because it was PUBLIC PROPERTY, and he proceeded to argue very forcefully that we were crazy. Well, at that moment I realized we were dealing with one of those genuine New York assholes who there was no arguing with. I wish this story ended with us whacking him with a stick or following him home and peeing on his doorstep but instead I just called him what he was — an asshole — and kept on walking.
Try putting coyote urine on your wall. Might work.
I hear dried deer blood could work, too.
I say get a really authentic looking fake $100 bill. Fold it in half and put it in the pee spot. Cover it with water/pee and see what happens. Also, a good way to scare off assholes is to convince the one at hand that you are crazier than they are. I’ve actually seen this work. In a face off, the non crazy yelled louder than the real crazy. The real crazy kept mumbling and muttering, but thereafter kept away. Seems the non crazy was one to be avoided. It worked.
thanks for the suggestions but where do i find dried deer blood or coyote urine? and how do i get the coyote to pee on the exact spot?
http://www.predatorpee.com
order now and get free shipping!
i would volunteer to walk a big dog for a week or so and have it do their business each and every day in front of your neighbor’s homes. it won’t breed neighborly love and it is stooping to their level-no pun intended… but it will piss them off and that brings a sweet smile to my face.it wont stop of all of the idiots but it will deter some of them.
good luck.
after seeing yet another big puddle this morning, i’m taking wini’s suggestion and buying coyote and fox urine!!! just purchased and i’ll let you know how it goes.
[...] month, I detailed my battle against some dog owners owners who are incapable of making their dogs walk along the curb [...]